A Coke bottling plant in Winona, Minn. The company has been affected by global droughts. Andrew Link/Winona Daily News, via Associated Press

WASHINGTON — Coca-Cola has always been more focused on its economic bottom line than on global warming, but when the company lost a lucrative operating license in India because of a serious water shortage there in 2004, things began to change.

Today, after a decade of increasing damage to Coke’s balance sheet as global droughts dried up the water needed to produce its soda, the company has embraced the idea of climate change as an economically disruptive force.

“Increased droughts, more unpredictable variability, 100-year floods every two years,” said Jeffrey Seabright, Coke’s vice president for environment and water resources, listing the problems that he said were also disrupting the company’s supply of sugar cane and sugar beets, as well as citrus for its fruit juices. “When we look at our most essential ingredients, we see those events as threats.”

Coke reflects a growing view among American business leaders and mainstream economists who see global warming as a force that contributes to lower gross domestic products, higher food and commodity costs, broken supply chains and increased financial risk. Their position is at striking odds with the longstanding argument, advanced by the coal industry and others, that policies to curb carbon emissions are more economically harmful than the impact of climate change.

“The bottom line is that the policies will increase the cost of carbon and electricity,” said Roger Bezdek, an economist who produced a report for the coal lobby that was released this week. “Even the most conservative estimates peg the social benefit of carbon-based fuels as 50 times greater than its supposed social cost.”

Some tycoons are no longer listening.

At the Swiss resort of Davos, corporate leaders and politicians gathered for the annual four-day World Economic Forum will devote all of Friday to panels and talks on the threat of climate change. The emphasis will be less about saving polar bears and more about promoting economic self-interest.

In Philadelphia this month, the American Economic Association inaugurated its new president, William D. Nordhaus, a Yale economist and one of the world’s foremost experts on the economics of climate change.

“There is clearly a growing recognition of this in the broader academic economic community,” said Mr. Nordhaus, who has spent decades researching the economic impacts of both climate change and of policies intended to mitigate climate change.

In Washington, the World Bank president, Jim Yong Kim, has put climate change at the center of the bank’s mission, citing global warming as the chief contributor to rising global poverty rates and falling G.D.P.’s in developing nations. In Europe, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the Paris-based club of 34 industrialized nations, has begun to warn of the steep costs of increased carbon pollution.

Nike, which has more than 700 factories in 49 countries, many in Southeast Asia, is also speaking out because of extreme weather that is disrupting its supply chain. In 2008, floods temporarily shut down four Nike factories in Thailand, and the company remains concerned about rising droughts in regions that produce cotton, which the company uses in its athletic clothes.

“That puts less cotton on the market, the price goes up, and you have market volatility,” said Hannah Jones, the company’s vice president for sustainability and innovation. Nike has already reported the impact of climate change on water supplies on its financial risk disclosure forms to the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Both Nike and Coke are responding internally: Coke uses water-conservation technologies and Nike is using more synthetic material that is less dependent on weather conditions. At Davos and in global capitals, the companies are also lobbying governments to enact environmentally friendly policies.

But the ideas are a tough sell in countries like China and India, where cheap coal-powered energy is lifting the economies and helping to raise millions of people out of poverty. Even in Europe, officials have begun to balk at the cost of environmental policies: On Wednesday, the European Union scaled back its climate change and renewable energy commitments, as high energy costs, declining industrial competitiveness and a recognition that the economy is unlikely to rebound soon caused European policy makers to question the short-term economic trade-offs of climate policy.

In the United States, the rich can afford to weigh in. The California hedge-fund billionaire Thomas F. Steyer, who has used millions from his own fortune to support political candidates who favor climate policy, is working with Michael R. Bloomberg, the former New York mayor, and Henry M. Paulson Jr., a former Treasury secretary in the George W. Bush administration, to commission an economic study on the financial risks associated with climate change. The study, titled “Risky Business,” aims to assess the potential impacts of climate change by region and by sector across the American economy.

“This study is about one thing, the economics,” Mr. Paulson said in an interview, adding that “business leaders are not adequately focused on the economic impact of climate change.”

Also consulting on the “Risky Business” report is Robert E. Rubin, a former Treasury secretary in the Clinton administration. “There are a lot of really significant, monumental issues facing the global economy, but this supersedes all else,” Mr. Rubin said in an interview. “To make meaningful headway in the economics community and the business community, you’ve got to make it concrete.”

Last fall, the governments of seven countries — Colombia, Ethiopia, Indonesia, South Korea, Norway, Sweden and Britain — created the Global Commission on the Economy and Climate and jointly began another study on how governments and businesses can address climate risks to better achieve economic growth. That study and the one commissioned by Mr. Steyer and others are being published this fall, just before a major United Nations meeting on climate change.

Although many Republicans oppose the idea of a price or tax on carbon pollution, some conservative economists endorse the idea. Among them are Arthur B. Laffer, senior economic adviser to President Ronald Reagan; the Harvard economist N. Gregory Mankiw, who was economic adviser to Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign; and Douglas Holtz-Eakin, the head of the American Action Forum, a conservative think tank, and an economic adviser to the 2008 presidential campaign of Senator John McCain, the Arizona Republican.

“There’s no question that if we get substantial changes in atmospheric temperatures, as all the evidence suggests, that it’s going to contribute to sea-level rise,” Mr. Holtz-Eakin said. “There will be agriculture and economic effects — it’s inescapable.” He added, “I’d be shocked if people supported anything other than a carbon tax — that’s how economists think about it.”

Capital is more than happy to enlist the mainstream [environmental] movement as a partner in the management of nature. Big environmental groups offer capital a threefold convenience: as legitimation, reminding the world that the system works; as control over popular dissent, a kind of sponge that sucks up and constrains the ecological anxiety in the general population; and as rationalization, a useful governor to introduce some control and protect the system from its own worst tendencies, while ensuring the orderly flow of profits.– Joel Kovel, 20021

Likewise, Michael Goldman writes that:

If we are to learn anything from the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio… it is that the objective of the Summit’s major power brokers was not to constrain or restructure capitalist economies and practices to help save the rapidly deteriorating ecological commons, but rather to restructure the commons (e.g. privatize, “develop,” “make more efficient,” valorize, “get the price right”) to accommodate crisis-ridden capitalisms. The effect has not been to stop destructive practices but to normalize and further institutionalize them.27The business co-option of the Earth Summit had of course been a long time coming. Indeed, the “sustainable” business community had begun organizing in earnest in 1984 following the first World Industry Conference on Environmental Management: a forum that eventually led to the creation of a Business Council for Sustainable Development on the eve of the Earth Summit. Timothy Doyle observes how:

As the 1980s wore on environmental antagonists looked to other less conflictual means of securing their future power. No longer did many business interests across the globe deny the existence of environmental damage caused, in part, to their own malpractices. Their ploy changed: to beat the environmentalists at their own game (but on newly defined terms and agendas); to subvert them, to divide them, to supplant them, to appear to be greener than the green.28

The formation of the Business Council for Sustainable Development (BCSD) is particularly interesting as the organizations two cofounders were Maurice Strong and the Swiss billionaire industrialist, Stephan Schmidheiny29 — a friend of Strong’s from his days at the Davos World Economic Forum (which Strong had chaired). According to critics, this group was part of “a strategy to dislodge the United Nations Center on Transnational Corporations as it moved towards enforceable rules governing the operations of multinational corporations.” Indeed, as Joshua Karliner observed, one particularly significant outcome from the Earth Summit was the “agile and successful endeavor to virtually silence all discussion among governments about the need for international regulation and control of global corporations in the name of sustainable development.” In this regard, Karliner writes that one “of the first obstacles that the corporate diplomats from the [International Chamber of Commerce] and the BCSD had to overcome was a branch of the United Nations itself — the United Nations Centre on Transnational Corporations (UNCTC).” Problematically it seems, the United Nations Economic and Social Council had asked the Centre to “prepare a set of recommendations on transnationals and other large industrial enterprises that governments might use when drafting the Earth Summit’s central document,” Agenda 21, which were to be submitted in March 1992. Yet the month before this date, the then UN secretary-general Boutros Boutros Ghali (1992-7)…… announced that the UNCTC would be eliminated as an independent entity. This move in effect gutted the agency of what little power it might have had. But it still had the report commissioned by ECOSOC to deliver to Maurice Strong and his UNCED Secretariat. Try as it might, however, the UNCTC couldn’t get the Secretariat to accept its report. Meanwhile, Strong had appointed Stephan Schmidheiny as his senior industry advisor. Schmidheiny proceeded to form the BCSD and prepare Changing Course as an official industry submission to UNCED.30

Maessen: The global front group of the Agenda 21 program which was formalized during the UN’s 1992 Earth Summit is proud to welcome Monsanto Company (NYSE:MON) as its newest “member”, joining the likes of such “sustainable” businesses as Coca Cola, Dutch Royal Shell and other global leviathans.The World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) has put out a press release, announcing that Monsanto has joined the effort for “global sustainable development”. The Council consists of several global mega-corporations such as Dutch Royal Shell and Coca Cola, to mention just a few.

The press-release notes that by joining the Council “Monsanto is taking an important step along a continuum towards developing a more sustainable agriculture system – one that improves our daily lives, respects our global environment and recognizes the importance of the world’s small-holder farmers”.

President of the WBCSD, Peter Bakker, stated that “a future vision” is required to move “to protect soils, enhance ecosystems and optimize land use in ways that are environmentally sound.”

“(…) we must move towards a future vision for agriculture where absolutes become as out of place as a one-size-fits-all approach to farming.”

“We are excited to join the WBCSD and connect with a global coalition of more than 200 companies that advocate for progress on sustainable development.”

The global coalition Steiner speaks about consists of just about all global mega-corporations. Here’s an overview of the membership-list as posted on the WBCSD’s website:

The Council on their website admits that it strives to execute Agenda 21 as part of a “One World Vision”. Furthermore, the WBCSD describes that it “has its roots in the proactive stance adopted by a group of visionary business leaders during and after the Rio Summit.”

“The Rio Summit in 1992 was a defining event for sustainable development. It added development to the environmental agenda, produced the Rio Declaration, the Climate Change and Biological Diversity Conventions and set in motion Agenda 21. Importantly, it positioned business as a key actor.”

Adding global GM food producer Monsanto to its roundtable equals victory for Agenda 21, as global food production is a prime concern as formulated during the 1992 Earth Summit.

Peter Bakker, the Council’s president, recently gave a speech in London for prince Charles, stating he is “delighted to be able to announce that WBCSD will collaborate with the Prince of Wales’ Accounting for Sustainability programme in convening a forum for CFOs and Accountants to discuss and develop scaled up solutions for finance and reporting in the run up to 2020”.

Bakker stated: “In 1992 the United Nations organized the first Earth Summit in Rio and Agenda 21 was published. If you read this document today you will be amazed at how relevant the descriptions of the world’s challenges are still in 2012 – only their urgency has increased since 1992.”

In 2011 the Council prepared a document for the latest Earth Summit in 2012 titled Vision 2050. In the document a “radical strategy” is being proposed in order to achieve this “one world” under an Agenda 21 regime:

“From 2020 to 2050, the traits formed during the first decade mature into more consistent knowledge, behavior and solutions. It is a period of growing consensus as well as wrenching change in many parts of society – climate, economic power, population – and a time for fundamental change in markets that redefines values, profits and success.”

The manuscript stresses that the vision for 2050 entails, among other things, a stabilization of the global population and a redistributing of the global population into compact cities:“In 2050, some 9 billion people live well, and within the limits of the planet. The global population has begun to stabilize, mainly due to the education and economic empowerment of women and increased urbanization. More than 6 billion people, two-thirds of the population, live in cities. People have the means to meet their basic human needs, including the need for dignified lives and meaningful roles in their communities.”

Another aspect of the described “vision” relates to a new “green revolution” and the use of biotechnologies to “feed the world”:

A 21st century version of the Green Revolution has helped the larger 2050 population meet its nutrition needs. Improved agricultural practices, water efficiency, new crop varieties and new technologies, including biotechnologies, have allowed a doubling of agricultural output without associated increases in the amount of land or water used.”

This, of course, is where our old friend Monsanto comes into play, which has now formally aligned itself with the global coordinating group of Agenda 21.

This article is brought to you courtesy of Jurriaan Maessen from ExplosiveReports.com

So there you go Rory, qagenda 21- a panacea to have faith in, cause everything goes better with Coke.

All these things will continue as long as coercion remains a central element of our mentality.

This is as good a place as any to interject and say: Sounder, what the fuck are you on aboutt? Your narrative is clear as mud and your rationales are all over the map.

The Queen, and Prince Charles are greens; Therefore, CONSPIRACY!

Coca Cola take action to mitigate risk to future profits, therefore THEY'RE ALL IN ON IT!

The science is clear and unarguable - 97% consensus - remarkable coherance from a diverse group of independent researchers, working in different parts of the world, to have come to the same conclusions.

And yet, oil money and politics trump reason. Green plots to create one world government abound. The elites contrived this and that's why spending on anti climate change propoganda dwarfs funding for research.

It doesn't pass the basic smell test. Follow the money and you see far more pitted against it than in support

Sounder, I dont see whats so hard to believe about a major Corporation suddenly caring about Global Warming because it cuts into their profits. Reptiles may not care about turning the planet into an unlivable wasteland but they damn sure care about their quarterly reports. If they had some minuscule degree of forward thinking they might have realized that their customers starving to death because depleted aquifers cant water crops is bad for business, and that no one is going to be buying a car to put fossil fuels into when their road to work floods every other week. But better late than never.

The science is clear and unarguable - 97% consensus - remarkable coherance from a diverse group of independent researchers, working in different parts of the world, to have come to the same conclusions.

You began your paragraph with ‘suddenly’ and ended with; ‘but better late than never’.

Yet Coke and Royal-Dutch Shell as well as many if not most multi-national corporations were on board at the Rio summit in 1992. Check that article. They are front running the environmental agenda while making it in their image with piles of PR money. Their true interest is to be able to secure source material at minimal cost by subverting any regional resistance.

“We are excited to join the WBCSD and connect with a global coalition of more than 200 companies that advocate for progress on sustainable development.”The Council on their website admits that it strives to execute Agenda 21 as part of a “One World Vision”. Furthermore, the WBCSD describes that it “has its roots in the proactive stance adopted by a group of visionary business leaders during and after the Rio Summit.”

These folk are money.

Koch is the same money, pumping the dichotomy from the other side.

But yeah sure, now these same folk should be trusted.

All these things will continue as long as coercion remains a central element of our mentality.

The science is clear and unarguable - 97% consensus - remarkable coherance from a diverse group of independent researchers, working in different parts of the world, to have come to the same conclusions.

To Mods...so long as members like Rory are allowed to go unchallenged on their continuous disregard for RI board rules..there is no point in my posting what I consider relevant research and information on the state of planetary climate that is of interest to many readers who visit this thread.

...Adios

There is That which was not born, nor created, nor evolved. If it were not so, there would never be any refuge from being born, or created, or evolving. That is the end of suffering. That is God**.

Ben D » 26 Jan 2014 00:56 wrote:To Mods...so long as members like Rory are allowed to go unchallenged on their continuous disregard for RI board rules..there is no point in my posting what I consider relevant research and information on the state of planetary climate that is of interest to many readers who visit this thread.

Ben D » 26 Jan 2014 00:56 wrote:To Mods...so long as members like Rory are allowed to go unchallenged on their continuous disregard for RI board rules..there is no point in my posting what I consider relevant research and information on the state of planetary climate that is of interest to many readers who visit this thread.

...Adios

NEVER SURRENDER.

Maybe its just me, but the phrasing and block capitalization reeks of crypto fascist sloganeering

It tickles me tono end to see Icke-washed defenders of the faith/truth like slimmouse, here defending big oil, the Koch brothers, the Rockerfellers (Exxon, Mobil, Chevron) and all the coal polluting industrialists.

Because you know it's the true truth when it is bankrolled by sociopathic libertarian billionaires and the most power hungry and corrupt corporations on earth - big oil.

Well done you, slimmouth, for seeing what the rest of us fools missed, and for spotting that climate science is a great big green conspiracy to force everyone to pay fart taxes and live in a new world communist order with Premier Obama as our overlord.

Btw. Slimemouse, where is the free energy stuff you have been prattling on about for months now? Is it just another icke-washed fantasy of yours? Did the jews contrive to hide it from us?